Beirut's Burj El Murr, An Unfinished Skyscraper, Has Been Decorated

Burj El Murr, the unfinished skyscraper that has loomed over Beirut for the past 40 years as an emblem of conflict, has been given a new lease of life by Lebanese artist Jad El Khoury.

In 1974, work started on building the Burj El Murr (also known as Murr Tower or Beirut Trade Center), a 34-story office tower in Beirut’s Kantari district. But when the Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975, construction halted, and the tower has stood unfinished and incomplete for over four decades.

Due to its advantageous location near the division between the east and west of the city and its panoptical perspective, it became the ideal sniper hideout for various militia factions, enabling them to maintain control of large areas of the city.

Since the end of the war, the concrete shell of a building – owned by the prominent El Murr political family – has remained empty and incomplete. Too tall and too dense to demolish because of its close proximity to other buildings, it punctuates the Beirut skyline as a stark reminder of war and unreconciled history.

Khoury transforms the somber monument that has overshadowed the city for far too long by using brightly colored striped curtains that typically adorn Beirut homes, ultimately ridding the tower of its involuntary symbolism of war.

Roughly translated as “Tower of Air”, “Burj El Hawa” animates the building by breathing new life and energy into it, and provides Beirut’s skyline with a symbol of hope that we anticipate the city and local community will embrace.